Feb. 1: National call-in day to stop grand jury witch hunt

[ckaihatsu]

Feb. 1: National call-in day to stop grand jury witch hunt

By Committee to Stop FBI Repression

Fight Back News Service is circulating the following call from the Committee to Stop FBI Repression.

National Call-In Day to Fitzpatrick, Holder and Obama
Tuesday, February 1st, 2011 - all day!

Over 50 cities, hundreds of groups, and thousands of people protested against FBI and U.S. Grand Jury repression on Tuesday January 25. The protests are a response to ongoing and expanding repression originating from U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald's office in Chicago. On September 24th, the FBI raided anti-war and solidarity activists' homes and subpoenaed fourteen in Chicago, Minneapolis, and Michigan. All fourteen decided to not appear before the Grand Jury in October. The Grand Jury is a secret and closed inquisition, where the U.S. Attorney controls the entire proceedings, hand picks the jurors, there is no judge, and the activists are not allowed a lawyer.

The following month, three Minneapolis women had their subpoenas reactivated and they are still waiting in limbo. Then nine more Palestine solidarity activists, most Arab-Americans, were subpoenaed to appear at the Grand Jury on January 25, 2011, launching renewed protests.

Now we are asking you to call those in charge of the repression aimed against anti-war leaders and the growing Palestine solidarity movement.

We want your help in promoting the national call in day to demand:

Call Off the Grand Jury Witch-hunt Against International Solidarity Activists!
Support Free Speech!
Support the Right to Organize!
Stop FBI Repression!
International Solidarity Is Not a Crime!


Three calls:

Call U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald at 312-353-5300. Then dial 0 (zero) for operator and ask to leave a message with the Duty Clerk.
Call U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder 202-353-1555
Call President Obama at 202-456-1111


Suggested text: “My name is __________, I am from _______(city), in ______(state). I am calling U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald (Eric Holder, President Obama) to demand he call off the Grand Jury and stop FBI repression against the anti-war and Palestine solidarity movements. I oppose U.S. government political repression and support the right to free speech and the right to assembly of the 23 activists subpoenaed. We will not be criminalized. Tell him to stop this McCarthy-type witch hunt against international solidarity activists!

Please sign and circulate our new petition at http://www.stopfbi.net/petition

Visit www.StopFBI.net or write [email protected] or call 612-379-3585.
Read more News and Views from the Peoples Struggle at http://www.fightbacknews.org. You can write to us at [email protected]

[ckaihatsu]

[anticapdiscuss] Fwd: Ominous Expansion of "Anti-Terrorism" Law


Here's the legal background for the FBI raids and grand jury summons, fyi. For more info on the charges, status, etc, go to www.stopfbi.net Earl


Ominous Expansion of "Anti-Terrorism" Law
By Michael Deutsch
Z Magazine
February 2011
http://www.zcommunications.org/ominous-expansion-of-anti-terrorism-law-by-michael-deutsch

In late September 2010, the FBI carried out a series of
raids of homes and offices of activists in Minneapolis
and Chicago. Following the raids, the Obama Justice
Department subpoenaed 14 activists to a grand jury in
Chicago, as well as the files of several antiwar and
community organizations. In carrying out these
repressive actions, the Justice Department was taking
its lead from the Supreme Court's 6-3 opinion last June
in Holder v. the Humanitarian Law Project, which decided
that nonviolent First Amendment speech and advocacy
"coordinated with" or "under the direction of" a foreign
group listed by the Secretary of State as "terrorist"
was a crime.

The search warrants and grand jury subpoenas make it
clear that federal prosecutors are intent on accusing
nonviolent political organizers of providing "material
support" through their public advocacy for the Popular
Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and the
Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The
Secretary of State has determined that both PLFP and
FARC "threaten U.S. national security, foreign policy,
or economic interests"-a finding not reviewable by the
courts-and listed both groups as foreign terrorist
organizations (FTOs).

In 1996, Congress made it a crime-then punishable by 10
years (later increased to 15)-for anyone in the U.S. to
provide "material support or resources to a foreign
terrorist organization or attempt or conspire to do so."
The present statute defines "material support or
resources" as: "any property, tangible or intangible, or
service, including currency or monetary instruments or
financial services, lodging, training, expert advice or
assistance, safe houses, false documentation or
identification, communications equipment, facilities,
weapons, lethal substances, explosives, personnel and
transportation except medicine or religious materials."

In the Humanitarian Law Project case, human rights
workers wanted to teach members of the Kurdistan PKK,
which seeks an independent Kurdish state, and the
Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE), which sought an
independent state in Sri Lanka, how to use humanitarian
and international law to peacefully resolve disputes and
obtain relief from the United Nations and other
international bodies for human rights abuses by the
governments of Turkey and Sri Lanka. Both organizations
were designated FTOs by the Secretary of State in a
closed hearing, where evidence is heard secretly.

Despite the nonviolent, peacemaking goal of the
Humanitarian Law Project, the majority of the Supreme
Court interpreted the law to make such conduct a crime.
Finding a new exception to the First Amendment, the
Court decided that any support, even if it involves
nonviolent efforts towards peace, is illegal under the
law since it "frees up other resources within the
organization that may be put to violent ends" and also
helps lend "legitimacy" to foreign terrorist groups.
Writing for the majority, Chief Justice Roberts, despite
the lack of any evidence, further opined that the FTO
could use the human rights law to "intimidate, harass,
or destruct" its adversaries and that even peace talks
themselves could be used as a cover to re-arm for
further attacks. Thus, the Court's opinion criminalizes
efforts by independent groups to work for peace if they
in any way cooperate or coordinate with designated FTOs.

The Court distinguishes what it refers to as
"independent advocacy," which it finds is not prohibited
by the statute from "advocacy performed in coordination
with, or at the direction of, a foreign terrorist
organization," which is, for the first time, found to be
a crime under the statute. The exact line demarcating
where independent advocacy becomes impermissible is left
open and vague.

Seizing on this overbroad definition of "material
support," the U.S. government is going after activists
who are clearly exercising First Amendment rights by
vocally opposing the government's branding of foreign
liberation movements as terrorist and supporting their
struggles against U.S.-backed repressive regimes.

Under the new definition of "material support," the
efforts of President Jimmy Carter to monitor elections
in Lebanon and coordinate with the political parties
there, including the designated FTO Hezbollah, could
well be prosecuted as a crime. Similarly, the
publication of op-ed articles by FTO spokespeople from
Hamas or other designated groups by the New York Times
or the Washington Post, or the filing of amicus briefs
by human rights attorneys arguing against a group's
terrorist designation or the statute itself, could also
now be prosecuted.

Of course, the first targets of this draconian expansion
of the material support law will not be a former
president, but members of left organizations.

In his foreword to Nelson Mandela's recent autobiography
Conversations with Myself, President Obama wrote that
"Mandela's sacrifice was so great that it called upon
people everywhere to do what they could on behalf of
human progress. The first time I became politically
active was during my college years, when I joined a
campaign on behalf of divestment, and the effort to end
apartheid in South Africa." At the time of Obama's First
Amendment advocacy, Mandela and his organization the
African National Congress (ANC) were denounced as
terrorists by the U.S. government. If the "material
support" law had been in effect back then, Obama would
have been subject to potential criminal prosecution. It
is ironic that the same person who speaks with such
reverence for Mandela now allows the Justice Department
under his presidency to criminalize similar First
Amendment advocacy against Israeli apartheid and
repressive foreign governments.

___________________________________________

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